Northern Australia's wet season started two months ago, however it is hardly living up to its name.
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Officially running from October to April, average to below average rainfall has been forecast this season.
This follows the sixth-wettest season on record since 1900-1901, where an average of 690.4 millimetres was recorded.
Bureau of Meteorology meteorologist Jessica Lingard said the dry conditions, coupled with few thunderstorms, meant there had not yet been the usual riverine responses.
Despite a couple of storms hitting the Kimberley region earlier this month, Ms Lingard said the bureau was still measuring river height rises in millimetres.
"As we move towards the end of the wet season, when the ground is wet and there is no room for rainfall to soak into it, that's when we start to measure in centimetres, if not metres," she said.
"That will be something to look at as we move forward."
Ms Lingard said the average to below-average rainfall forecast for this season was due to the two main climate drivers - El Nino and a positive Indian Ocean Dipole.
She said this meant warmer waters off both WA's North West and coasts on the Eastern States being further away from the country in both directions - one being closer to India and the other South America.
"Where there is warm water, you will see evaporation, that's where you see clouds and that's where you see rainfall," Ms Lingard said.
"If the warmer water is further away we aren't going to see those rains around Australia, like we would in a La Nina year.
"That is what we experienced over the past three years, which led to the devastating floods in the Eastern States."
Ms Lingard said last season's weather events were more likely in a La Nina event, and not so much in an El Nino.
Keeping this in mind, she said extreme flooding was unlikely, which should ease the anxieties of some northern WA residents.
"(December 2022-January 2023) we saw ex-Tropical Cyclone Ellie get stuck in the Kimberley and it didn't move," Ms Lingard said.
"And that was the reason why we saw all of the rainfall and flooding, which caused damage to the Fitzroy River bridge.
Ms Lingard said in the coming season if there was tropical activity, such as a cyclone or tropical low moving past, it would most likely make a swift movement across the Kimberley, before heading back out to sea or into central parts, where it would essentially "fizzle out".
Separately, she said there was usually a delayed onset to the monsoon, which is the heaviest rainfall, arriving in an El Nino year.
"The monsoon usually makes its way south of the equator and hits Darwin around Christmas," Ms Lingard said.
"However, this year it will probably happen in early January instead."
With the new Fitzroy River bridge set to be finished by Sunday December 10 (see story on page 24), Ms Lingard confirmed the flood gauges damaged during the January 2023 flood -including Fitzroy Crossing, Dimond Gorge, Looma and Fitzroy Barrage - have been replaced, and flood warnings for the catchment have been upgraded from generalised to qualitative.